Late in the evening of Friday 17th of June, the TripRoast boys got invited to take a trip to the Great Wall of China! We agreed as this was an unorganised trip that was going to be far cheaper than a package tour which would be full of tourists! Needless to say we agreed!

It was an early morning start the next day for the TripRoast boys and the two honourary TripRoast girls (Jemma and Tamsin). Noone looked ready for the 2 and a half hour one way trip to the secret non-touristy part of the wall! The journey consisted of a tube ride, a long bus ride, (with a stop off for Dirty Dog to take care or some urgent business…… we won’t go into that here), and a 40km minibus ride which we had to use our newly acquired bartering skills! After 10 minutes of haggling and eventually walking away, only to get called back at the last moment we managed to get a return journey for 120YN (half now, then half when we get back) split between 6 of us - now that’s a bargain!

After a crazy minibus ride through some stunning scenary of “real” China, we arrived at the wall and what a sight it was! Just check out some of the photos!!!

The first part of the epic climb meant crossing a large dam…..well that’s not too bad is it………….WRONG!!! This dam had no safety precautions of anytype and only had a space of about 6foot wide to walk across! There’s a one hundred foot drop on one side (guestimate) and a huge lake the other side with a 10foot drop! The wind didn’t help the situation!

Dirty Dog was straight across loving it! Jemma and Tamsin were straight across without hesitation! Pesky had no problem until he looked down halfway across, his paced only slowed slightly and he didn’t look down again!

What about Jaytona and Sugar Daddy I hear u ask……

After contemplating it for 10 minutes Jaytona faced his fears and slowly edged out across the dam with the help of Pesky who came back to help his fellow TripRoaster - Jaytona did well - slow but steady! There is quite an amusing video Pesky took towards the end! Hopefuly this will be on the website soon! It goes something like “everything’s fine…. everythings’ fine… a quick look down…… oh dear!!”

Dirty Dog (who also went back to lend support) spent longer trying to convince Sugar Daddy to cross but he wasn’t having any of it saying he was going to go and wait at the side of the road for us! This wasn’t an option as we were not going to be coming back this way and there was noway we were going to let Sugar Daddy miss climbing the Great Wall. Crossing the dam was the only option! Or was it…………………

A local spotted the problem and pointed downwards to the bottom of the dam - Dirty Dog spotted what she was trying to say - there was a little wooden suspention bridge way down in the valley which we could cross to get to the other side of the river and then walk up to the wall from there! Dirty Dog and Sugar Daddy went this way - couldn’t let Sugar Daddy go by himself! After a climb down the side of the valley Sugar Daddy and Dirty Dog reach the “suspention bridge”. Now all i can really say to describe this “bridge” is have you ever seen Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom? Remember that bridge towards the end where it is falling apart and made from planks of rotting wood……. I would have preferred to have walked across that! This bridge was awful! Dirty Dog went first to show Sugar Daddy it was Safe (I couldn’t back out now could I!). After a lot of creaking planks and slowly making our way forwards we get to a part of the bridge where it tilts to the side when you walk on it! At this point Sugar Daddy looks back…..realises that he is more than halfway across and has no choice! We both make it safely across - somehow!

Hats off to Sugar Daddy and Jaytona for facing their fears!

After a steap climb up the side of the valley, Sugar and Dirty Dog join up with the rest of the gang further up the Wall! We were there on the wall!!!!! The views were amazing and the wall stretched out in front of us!!!

After a hard climb up the wall we get to a guard house that actually had guards in it…… Well when i say guards I mean locals who had blocked the entrace to the tower with a thorn bush which we needed to take to continue climbing the wall. There was no way through! We were expecting this as the person who told us about this route said for us to wait around for 5 minutes looking really cross then offer them 10YN to let us pass! This we did and were allowed to enter the guard house and to continue on our journey after a warning to stay on the left hand side of the wall. We had reached the original part of the wall!!! This was in surprisingly good condition for having had no work done it for god knows how many years- but even so there were some dodgy parts!

The Wall continued to head upwards and at a steep incline! We couldn’t turn back so on we go! We are all starting to get tired and just at the right time we come across a flat square section built into the wall. This had stunning views!!!!!!!!!! A rest here was inevitable! Jaytona and Dirty Dog had a Jive lesson expertly taught by Jemma - there are pictures of this i believe!!!!! I’m sure this is the first time a dance lesson took place on the Great Wall of China!

After the dance lesson the walk continued…. up and up and up! We leave the wall at one section as it was a huge walk up the side of a mountain which then curled round and back on itself to head down the mountain again! We cut across the side of the mountain to join up with the wall on the downward section! A slight cheat I know but the wall at this point had fallen down in places so I think we were being safe! When we rejoined the wall another rest was inevitable as the descent was very steep! Jaytona and Dirty Dog took the oppurtunity to climb part of the broken wall and moon the rest of the group!

***There is a photo of this! I warn those of you now who don’t want to see this! However it is our site and we find it funny!***

After a very quick descent (going down is easier than going up strangely enough) we get to the bottom of the wall - well what you can call the bottom! Is that the end of the story…. No!!!!

There was an old lady….with an axe!!!! She was demanding money for us to get off the wall!!! Now we paid to go up the wall, we were hot, sweaty and hungry and were getting sick of the locals exploiting travellers. We didn’t want to pay to leave the wall!!!! We tried to walk past and this old women went mental and started swinging her axe around! Dirty Dog was having none of this - he picked up a large rock and walked towards her where she instantly became nice and started making motions that the axe was only for cutting grass and brambles out of her way! Dirty Dog and Jemma walk down without paying - somehow Pesky, Tamsin, Jaytona and Sugar Daddy don’t follow and Pesky ends up paying this old woman just to shut her screaming up. Twice more on the way down people try to stop us and make us pay (even though Pesky paid the old women). Did we pay these people… no! We walked straight past! Even Pesky had had enough of the locals! Once they saw we weren’t going to pay they just left us alone!

After a great meal in a little restaurant we found and the best tasting beer ever, we started the long journey back to the hostel - all very tired but with great memories to take with us!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 at 12:29 pm and is filed under Beijing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.